


Dying Light

by Edhla



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-10
Updated: 2013-04-10
Packaged: 2017-12-08 01:21:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/755329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edhla/pseuds/Edhla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Night follows day, even on the day of Sherlock Holmes' death. A post-Reichenbach ficlet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dying Light

The light was fading.

John lay on the bedspread in his jeans and shoes, watching the muted beams of an overcast day retreat from where they fell over him. The night would follow. The streetlamps would come on, one by one; the city would light up. The tramp of feet from the footpath outside would change tenor- the slow, heavy trudge of those coming home from a day at work would be replaced with the upbeat steps of people who were going out to have fun.

Downstairs, there was a muffled sound that he couldn't quite place- a high, thin sort of keening sound, like a cat or a bird or a little child. Through the fog that had wrapped itself around him, John realised that it was Mrs. Hudson. She was crying for her boy.

Sherlock Holmes was dead.

There were other sounds in the flat itself- he wasn't alone. Low voices out on the stairs, though he could only catch murmurs that seemed to seep through the gap below the door.

" _He's a bit out of it... been sedated. He can't stay here, it'll send him out of his mind. We're going to need to find him somewhere else to live."_

" _He's welcome to live with me... not going to want to... make him worse. Has he spoken?"_

" _No. I don't even think he knows where he is right now."_

A creaking step on the landing outside; then a two-fingered tap on the door, which swung open gently.

"John?" Harry was standing in the doorway. He knew her voice, though he couldn't bring himself to turn over and face her; she came over to him and sat down on the bed beside him. "John, it's me."

Her warm, dry hand found his, but he greeted her touch with a sort of slack-wristed acceptance. His gaze was still on the chink of light retreating from the floor to the window.

"Your friend called me... Detective Inspector Lestrade. He told me what happened. I'm so sorry."

Silence; silence broken only by Mrs Hudson's cries, and what John now recognised as Lestrade's low tones as he tried to comfort her.

"Do you want to talk? I'm here if you want to talk..."

Downstairs, a door closed. At the same time the light dimmed further as the sun, already muffled by a white blanket of cloud cover, sank behind the buildings across the street.

Drawing his hand out of Harry's, John got up unsteadily and wobbled over to the window. He threw open the russet-coloured curtains and pushed up the sash, letting the cold freshness of the spring evening soothe the dry heat in his face and hands.

His hands...

Clinging to the windowsill, he looked down at them as if he was seeing them for the first time. Both trembling under that white-knuckled grip- the left worse than the right. Split knuckles on the right hand. Blood under the fingernails...

Not blood.

Brains.

He had traces of Sherlock's brains under his fingernails.

There was barely time to turn away from the windowsill before he heaved and vomited. Sour water and Temazepam splashed onto his shoes and the surrounding floorboards.

"John-"

The second wave of vomiting he tried to stop with his hands, to no avail. Eyes and nose streaming, he sank down onto the floor, palms-down in the sticky, warm puddle. Harry, now on her knees beside him, was rubbing between his shoulder blades with the ball of her hand. "It's okay. Let it happen... let it happen..."

A hush; day drew its last weak breath, and the bitter light of streetlamps flooded the room.


End file.
